Experiences of going to university and….surviving!

Beef

This week we made lasagne. It was actually my first time making this, I tend to just go for a simple pasta bake however I thought I would try something new.

Okay, the ingredients;

– 1000 g lean beef mince

– 200 mL hot beef stock

– about 3 tablespoons olive oil

– a block of cheese

– lasagne sheets (standard box of about 500 g will be more than plenty for this)

For the tomato sauce;

– 2 onions

– 2 garlic cloves

– 2 tbsp tomato purée

– 200 mL white wine (I use blossom hill a small bottle (187 mL) they only cost about £2)

– 1200 g tinned chopped tomatoes (3 x 400 g tins)

For the white sauce we used Dolmio cheesy white sauce simply to save time, and we have never made white sauce before, plus this was cheaper…they had an offer on! 😀

LET’S GET TO IT!!!

Step 1: Heat 1 tbsp of olive oil in a pan and add the chopped onion and garlic. Cook until brown and soft. Then add the tomato paste, cook for a little longer whilst stirring continuously. Add the wine like you are a true italian! I believe it is italian to add wine to dishes like this, I hope that is not offensive….It is also tradition for the french to drink wine whilst cooking! That I can say because I am half french…but I diagress. So the wine is added, you need to bring to the boil and allow it to reduce, it takes about 5 minutes. After this add the tinned tomato and allow to simmer for 20 minutes.

Step 2: During this time you need to a) prepare the beef stock, and b) brown the mince meat for about 10 minutes. This is where timing comes in! When all of that is done, combine the tomato sauce, the beef stock and the mince meat together. Bring to the boil and simmer for 30 minutes.

Step 3: Preheat oven to gas mark 4 (approx 180 degrees centigrade), oil a dish then in this order add layers of meat, lasagne sheets, white sauce, and repeat 2 more times so you have 3 layers of each and the top is topped with white sauce. After this you can add your cheese to the top. We opted for normal cheddar cheese, but you usually use mozzarella strands. We also decided to use the entire block because we are cheese lovers and cheese is the best invention. After this place in the oven for 45 minutes until lightly browned.

After this has cooked you have an amazing lasagne which I thoroughly enjoyed eating, it was delicious and there were leftovers with 4 of us eating it! Easily 6 portions there, so they could be frozen for later and cooked from frozen by just doubling the cooking time above. It’s very likely I will be doing another italian dish….I just love italian food! This was all purchased from morrisons for just a little over £15, with some things left over and just from this to get 6 decent portions I would definitely say it’s is good value for money!